Brett Marchand

Brett Marchand is the head of Vision7 International, a $750M marketing communications group, and Cossette Communications, Canada’s largest advertising agency—but the name tag on his door says “head cheerleader.”

As President and CEO of Vision7 International, he oversees Cossette as Executive Chairman, as well as Citizen Relations PR, V7 Media and digital/advertising agency network The Camps Collective. He assumed leadership of the company in 2010 after Cossette, which was a public company (TSX: KOS), went private with its private equity partner, Mill Road Capital. At the end of 2014, the company was sold to China’s BlueFocus Group, where he has a role as Chief Growth Officer.

Mr. Marchand has seen Vision7 and Cossette be named a Platinum Employer by AON Hewitt (2017) and Agency of the Year by Strategy Magazine (2016), and several of its clients have been named Marketer of the Year for five of the past seven years.

Prior to his career in advertising, Mr. Marchand was a marketer working for well-known brands like Procter & Gamble, Campbell’s Soups and Molson Breweries. His most famous achievement was the Molson Canadian “I am CANADIAN: The Rant” campaign, which has been recognized as Canada’s greatest of all time.

Mr. Marchand is proud to have been named a recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal for his charitable work in Canada and abroad. He is deeply involved with not-for-profit organizations in healthcare (SickKids Hospital Foundation, St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation, and CBT Associates), education (Pathways to Education and the University of Alberta School of Business), technology (NewCo Toronto, C100, and the Ontario Science Centre’s Innovators Ball) and affordable housing (Chair of the Habitat for Humanity Carter Work Project, 2017).

Mr. Marchand has been happily married for 22 years to Cynthia Morrison Marchand, with whom he has two wonderful children, Allie and Kyle.